Thursday, September 24, 2009

Sick Soup + Baby's Own Photo Album

I just made the second big batch this week of this chicken stock veggie soup.

It's so simple but so dang good, I can't believe I haven't been making this stuff for years. The key is making the broth (stock? broth? Is there a difference I wonder?) from scratch rather than using canned, which makes a world of difference in the flavor I think (I am quite convinced of this, but a side-by-side comparison would still be fun). Herbs and vegetables can be used too for the broth, but all I used was what was left over from a baked chicken we ate recently, simmered in water for hours and then strained. This I used (plus additional water so it would go further) as my base for a simple vegetable soup, seasoned only with salt and pepper (and garlic, if that counts). I used some butter, too, to saute the harder vegetables in first before adding them to the broth. I call it "sick soup" because it's perfect for that and my aunt made me some recently when I had a fever, but really it's an anytime soup, and we all love it (baby included). Enrique even thinks we should sell it, it's that good. And bone broth is really good for you, too. This articletalks about it, and has a few different stock recipes, but I've only so far had a chance to skim it.

This is a little photo album I put together for Zoë the other day.

She likes photos and I thought this might help quell her desire to go tearing through mine. There are still some unfilled pages and I recently came across the idea of taking pictures for a baby of things it likes, like favorite toys and places, so maybe I will do that and add them in. Also, it is nice that these photos are sleeved so I can switch them out whenever and make her a whole new set of images.